by Simon Crisp
If you're a cycling commentator, things are about to get more complex in 2024. It's going to tricky enough remembering to call Jumbo-Visma Visma-Lease-a-bike, and then you've got to remember that the long time Arkea-Samsic are now Arkea-B&B Hotels. Then, when you've strained your gray matter not to mess those up, you've got to wrap... Continue Reading →
Having just gone through what was, in the most politest terms, a PR incident in having to effectively have crisis talks with riders to decide which one of them was allowed to win a Grand Tour, you would have thought the last thing Jumbo-Visma wanted to do was to create more controversy that might remove... Continue Reading →
A straw man often employed by the media is that cycling claims to be a green sport, but is nothing of the sort. They cite the team cars, air travel and plastic bidons as being indicative of hypocrisy, yet teams have rarely, if at all bothered to push any sort of environmental cause as part... Continue Reading →
It's Oscars time, when arthouse cinema gathers together, thinks its popular, then is shocked when the films that win don't do particularly well at the box office. Whilst this years nominees are an eclectic mix of biographies, neo-westerns and god-awful climate change analogies, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as it is officially... Continue Reading →
Quick Step. CSC. Fassa Bortolo. Phonaesthetic names that roll off the tongue well, but do you know what they actually do? Cycling teams are after all literal rolling billboards, advertising the wares of their benefactors to across the world from the deserts of Dubai to the industrial fields of Flanders. With some rare exceptions, teams... Continue Reading →
The Kazakhs had another highly eventful year in 2008, taking their 2nd and 3rd Grand Tours, but not without lashings of controversy. For the previous years, see 2006 and 2007 January 5th 2008 Johan Bruyneel insists that Astana is "not a copy of Discovery Channel" and claims to have "certain written guarantees" about the... Continue Reading →
It's just after the rest day (my internet may have been dead on the actual day...), so here's a few thoughts, illustrated by some graphs as always, about the Tour so far. The Top 10 so far If you've ever been an insomniac and thus felt the need to look at the many, many graphs... Continue Reading →
Remember the World Cycling Series? This was the breakaway league idea put forward in late November 2011 that was to create a “new, truly global racing competition” with “teams at the heart of the event.” Jonathan Vaughters, who anyone familiar with this blog will know I love and adore, proclaimed that it “would definitely happen.”... Continue Reading →
Who are the sponsor? Garmin make GPS navigation equipment, Sharp make electrical items such as televisions. Nationality: American 2013 Ranking: 8th Past Stars: Bradley Wiggins, Heinrich Haussler, Thor Hushovd, Sep Vanmarkce, Fredrik Kessiakoff, Svein Tuft, Magnus Backstedt. Selected Team Palmares: 1st, 2012 Giro d’Italia (Ryder Hesjedal) Stages, Tour de France (2011×2, Tyler Farrar and TTT, 2012, David... Continue Reading →
Who are the sponsor? Garmin make GPS navigation equipment, Sharp make electrical items such as televisions. Nationality: American 2012 Ranking: 9th Past Stars: Bradley Wiggins, Heinrich Haussler, Thor Hushovd, Sep Vanmarkce, Fredrik Kessiakoff, Svein Tuft, Magnus Backstedt. Selected Team Palmares: 1st, 2012 Giro d'Italia (Ryder Hesjedal) Stages, Tour de France (2011x2, Tyler Farrar and TTT, 2012, David... Continue Reading →
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